


i'm losing myself (i don't want to lose you)

by orphan_account



Category: The Maze Runner (2014), The Maze Runner Series - All Media Types, The Maze Runner Series - James Dashner
Genre: Angst, M/M, Multi, Newt POV, Not A Happy Ending, The Death Cure Spoilers, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:47:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,767
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3521183
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orphan_account/pseuds/orphan_account
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Whatever the Flare takes from him, he won't let it take Tommy and Minho.</p>
            </blockquote>





	i'm losing myself (i don't want to lose you)

**Author's Note:**

> So this was going to be Minewt during TDC, but Thomas snuck his way in there pretty quickly, so... Thominewt! Also, there's pretty major spoilers for the series. And angst. Lots of angst.

When Rat Man calls his name, Newt can feel himself deflate, relax even. That's it then, he has the Flare, he's finally going to die. He's almost relieved at the thought, because what does he have to live for?   
Then he makes the mistake of looking at Thomas, who is staring at him with tears in his eyes, looking like his world is falling apart, and he remembers. Tommy. Minho. They need him.   
And yet he can't do anything, can't stop the Flare from eating away at his brain (he can feel it now, he thinks, even though he knows it can't be true, that it's too soon for the disease to do anything more than knock him off balance a bit). But he doesn't want them to hurt, even though he knows watching him fall apart will, so he forces himself to grin and makes a joke about being tired of living anyway that he knows will hit a bit too close to home with Minho but serves to makes Thomas pull himself together and plaster a smile on.   
He's almost scared to look at Minho but does anyway, schooling his face into a forced calm expression, and he knows Minho will recognize it instantly, see through it in a heartbeat, but he has to at least try.   
He meets Minho's eyes after a moment of hesitation, sees the pain and the disbelief there, the way he grits his teeth and clenches his hands into fists, his entire body shaking with barely contained anger. Newt wants desperately to comfort him, to say something to calm him down, but the only thing Minho wants to hear is that it's all some sick joke and Newt's immune like the rest of them and Newt can't give him that, so instead he takes a step closer and slides his hand down Minho's arm, prying his fist open and intertwining their fingers. Minho clutches his hand like a lifeline. Thomas holds his other hand just as tight.   
Newt promises himself then that whatever the Flare takes from him, he won't let it take Minho or Tommy.   
...   
They're quiet that night in the room WICKED gives them, eating the food brought to them in relative silence. Newt hates it, because the silence lets his thoughts run unhindered, blurring together and full of desperation, because he doesn't even know anything about the Flare except that it's going to make him go insane and what's going to happen to Minho and Tommy? What's going to happen to the three of them, what's going to happen when they have to watch him lose his mind, forget who they are, can he protect them from that, can he somehow make sure they'll be okay, what if this is-   
"Maybe we should just give in to those shuck-faces." Minho breaks the silence, his voice surprisingly steady after everything that's happened that day. " Maybe someday we'll all just sit around, happy."   
Thomas scoffs. Newt tries to catch someone's gaze but both of them avoid his eyes. "Yeah, and maybe they'll figure out this shucking blueprint business and we'll all live happily ever after."   
Minho smiles slightly. "We can get a house on the shucking beach."   
"That's not even funny." Newt complains, his heart clenching painfully, because he's pretty sure he's never wanted something more than he wants that bloody beach house with Minho and Tommy right now, and he's never going to get it. "That's not gonna happen."   
"It could." Thomas protests, but it sounds weak even to his own ears.   
Newt scoffs lightly and they fall into silence again. He tries desperately to silence the thoughts running rampant in his head, but it's no use, because what if this is the last night they have? He doesn't know how long the Flare takes to set in, to strip away a person's sanity until there's nothing left. He wishes he didn't have to find out.   
When he looks back up, Minho is staring at him and Newt knows by the look on his eyes that Minho's thinking the same thing he is, and suddenly Newt can't bring himself to care about escape plans or talking about how they're going to get through this and he surges forward, kissing Minho desperately, hands in each others hair and under shirts, pulling each other closer; Thomas plasters himself to Newt's back and when Minho releases Newt's lips he turns his head to the side, and then Thomas is kissing him like somehow this will make everything right in the world.   
He doesn't realize he's crying until Thomas is kissing the tears off his cheeks. He smiles despite himself and kisses Tommy again, pushes himself further into Minho's embrace, because he doesn't know what he's done to deserve everything these two give him but he loves them for it.   
Later, after they've all squeezed themselves into a bunk, with Minho's chest against his back and his head on Tommy's shoulder, Minho's arm draped over him, a hand on Thomas's hip, Newt smiles slightly and lets himself whisper into Thomas's skin that the beach does sound pretty nice.   
…   
Their escape is a blur, but as Newt lays down in Minho's arms on the berg, casting a quick glance at Thomas, who's still passed out from the launcher grenade, he finds he can remember every detail of it vividly. Mostly he remembers the Flare, the itch in his brain that was (is) just strong enough to throw him off, make him get ridiculously angry over the stupidest things, made him punch Minho, and it was then that everything had really set in, that he was already losing himself. He couldn't let himself lose them too, he can't, he won't. And that was when he wrote the note, because the only way to make sure he didn't lose Tommy and Minho was to make sure he never made it to a place where the Flare could take that part of him away, and the only way to do that is to make sure he's gone before then, and he can't trust himself to do it because he tried that before and he's still here, isn't he? And he hates himself for asking Tommy to do it, but he doesn’t have anyone else he can ask because Alby's dead and Minho would do everything in his power to stop him if he had any idea what Newt was thinking, so Newt has to ask Tommy, and really it makes sense anyway, because he knows Thomas, and the bloody shank has a huge hero complex and he won't be able to deny Newt what he asks even if it kills him. And he knows, he knows, that killing him, that losing him, that seeing him dead will kill Tommy, kill Minho too, but surely losing him to death will hurt them less than losing him to insanity, watching him slip away piece by piece until he can't even remember who they are anymore.   
He doesn't say anything to Minho though, just burrows deeper into his arms and falls into a dreamless sleep.   
...   
He can feel the Flare crawling up his throat into his brain, twisting his emotions and his words, and he can feel himself slipping deeper into the ocean that is insanity, set adrift without anyone or anything to anchor him to the spot.   
It's worse when Tommy and Minho leave, when they say their bloody goodbyes and march into Denver with Brenda and Jorge and without him. Tommy stares at him for several long moments before they leave, drinking him in, as if trying to make this one moment last forever, and Minho hugs him like he's scared Newt's going to fall apart when he lets go, but in the end they leave like they always do, and this time Newt's not sure he'll be there when they get back.   
He paces the berg aimlessly, lost inside his own head. He tries desperately to focus on Minho and Tommy, on the good things, but the Flare begins to distort even his memories until he's not sure what happened and what didn't anymore and he's the tiniest bit relieved when those shucking guards climb aboard the ship and declare they're taking him to live with the other bloody Cranks.   
They let him write a note to say goodbye to his friends and he stares at the page for several long moments, wondering what to write. He wants to write iloveyouiloveyouiloveyou, over and over again until the entire page is covered in it, wants to write pleasetommysavemetommyplease, wants to write imsorryimsorryididntwanttoloseyou, wants to say everything that he hasn't said the last few days, but in the end he just tells them what's happened and leaves without even signing his name.   
...   
The Crank Palace is wild and chaotic and Newt can't help but be a little bit afraid of some of the people there and he wishes his friends would come find him, save him. And then he hopes they won't because these people (people people when did they become people and not Cranks he doesn't think he even knows the difference anymore) these people aren't the monsters and Newt realizes he's not afraid of them, he's afraid of himself because this is what he's going to become and this wasn't supposed to happen, Tommy was supposed to save him, but then again Newt's the monster here and how can you save someone from themselves?   
He's surprised and angry and apprehensive and just the slightest bit excited when the guards tell him that Minho and Tommy are here looking for him, because they can't save him but they're here and he doesn't want them to see him like this and so he tells the guards to tell them to bugger off even though he knows it won't work because Minho and Tommy never listened to him anyway but he has to try because they're here and it wasn't supposed to happen like this.   
He wonders if Tommy has read his note.   
He hears Minho and Tommy before he sees them and he half rises to his feet, wanting nothing more to run to them and thank them because they came, they saved him, they're gonna go home, and then he remembers they don't have a home, they never did, and they're never going to get a beach house and bloody happily ever after because they can't save him it's too late don't they understand? He repeats the thought like a mantra in his head, over and over, itstoolateitstoolateitstoolate, until he's got himself convinced that he hates Minho and Tommy as much as he loves them because they don't understand anymore and really they never did.   
His anger flares the moment they ask, no, beg, him to leave with them, and even though he knows that he's being unfair, that he's hurting them, he screams at them for coming and being stupid enough to think they could save him because he's a Crank don't you get it Minho there's nothing you can do to save me just get out of here, please Min, just go. And then Tommy tries too and Newt snarls at him because he hasn't read his note, of course he hasn't, or maybe he has and is just ignoring it Newt doesn't know but whatever the reason Tommy isn't going to give him what he wants, what he needs, and so he needs to get out of here before Newt does something stupid.   
When they don't move Newt swings the Launcher up, pointing it at Minho, his arms, no, his entire body shaking, and Minho's face collapses.   
"You're going to shoot me?" He asks, his voice low and full of pain, and Newt hates himself for causing it but this is the only way, can't they see that?   
"Go," He tells them, tightening his grip on the Launcher. He's not sure if he's more scared that he'll actually shoot Minho or that he won't.   
"Come on," Thomas says slowly, not looking at Newt, and he know Tommy can't bare to see what he's become. "Let's go."   
"You... you can't be serious," Minho says, his gaze darting between Thomas and Newt, wide eyed and desperate, begging them to change their minds, and Newt can feel tears streaming down his face as he avoids Minho's gaze because if he looks at him, he's going to lose it and beg Minho not to leave him and he can't let that happen.   
It's better this way, he tells himself.   
As they leave, Minho turns and looks back at him, tears streaming down his face (he's known Minho all his life and has never seen him cry, not even after Newt found himself lying crippled in bed after he jumped off the maze wall and Minho screamed at him until he was hoarse for being a shucking idiot, and it's Minho's tears that tell him he's lost his best friend, because Minho's finally given up on saving him) and even though this is what Newt wanted, it hurts more than anything during the bloody Trials ever did.   
…   
It ends how he hoped it would.   
Tommy finds him in Denver, jumps out of the car he's riding in and makes his way toward Newt. Minho's nowhere to be seen and Newt knows he should be glad because it makes everything easier but really it just makes him mad because trying to live without Minho is like trying to breathe underwater and he's drowning, desperate to see Minho one last time, to tell him thank you and I love you and I'm sorry and it isn't your fault, because Minho deserves more than this, deserves a proper goodbye, and goddammit it wasn't supposed to happen like this, it wasn't supposed to hurt this much, but the world is already shot to pieces and at least with Tommy here they can get the ending of the story right. He's already lost them and they're the best part of him but at least he's going to die while he still remembers their names.   
He screams at Thomas, only half aware of what he's saying, and he knows that if he was still himself he would never say these things but he isn't himself and he hates Tommy, wants to climb on top of him and claw his eyes out, hit him over and over but he wants to kiss him too and he's not quite sure what the difference is anymore.   
Tommy is crying now, begging him to come with him, promising him a cure and it makes Newt so unbelievably angry because he doesn't get it there is no cure this is the closest thing to a happy ending they're going to get. He can see Tommy reaching for the gun at his waist and Newt smiles as he screams at Tommy ihateyouihateyouihateyou and he's not sure if he means it or not (he hates him, he does, but he loves him too, loves him and Minho so bloody much and he didn't know one person could feel so many things at once) but it doesn't really matter if he hates Tommy or not because hearing Newt say it will hurt and this is the only way he can think of to make Tommy do what he needs him to do. His fingers grab at the gun as Tommy pulls it from his belt and he forces it to his forehead, holding Tommy's shaking hands in place as he screams desperately for Thomas to finally end his miserable existence.   
Sanity grips him one last time and he takes control of his limbs, his entire body trembling as he lifts his hand to Tommy's cheek and runs his thumb over the tears gathering there, brushing their lips together briefly, fighting with everything he has to hold onto this tiny little bit of sanity, because if he's going to die he wants to die as himself.   
"Please Tommy," He murmurs, and he can see Tommy's gaze softening, his eyes filling with something like understanding and as he grips the gun tighter, Newt smiles, his eyes begging for mercy. "Please."   
Tommy brushes one last kiss against his lips, closes his eyes, and pulls the trigger; there's a moment where it seems like time stops and Newt drinks Tommy in, his hand slipping from Tommy's cheek to his neck and then down his arm until his fingers are brushing the back of Tommy's hand, and then the world starts to fade and with his last trembling breath, Newt prays that Minho and Tommy will be okay.


End file.
